Mobile merchants are an increasingly prevalent phenomenon. For example, merchants such as mobile food providers (e.g., food trucks, food deliver services, etc.), home service providers (e.g., electricians, carpenters, floor installers, plumbers, housekeepers, handymen, etc.), transportation service providers (e.g., taxis, limousines, tow trucks, etc.), door-to-door salesman, flea market vendors, and the like, may engage in payment transactions at different locations. Since many customers prefer to conduct purchases using credit cards, debit cards, and the like, mobile merchants may utilize mobile access devices (e.g., mobile POS terminals) to accept these forms of payment.
However, the rules governing such payment transactions may vary from location to location. For example, the California Song-Beverly Credit Card Act restricts how merchants can accept and utilize certain types of personal information (e.g., ZIP codes, email addresses, etc.) in the context of an electronic payment transaction. To illustrate, in California, a merchant may not in some instances be permitted to request a customer ZIP code for authentication of an electronic payment transaction until after the transaction has been authorized by the issuer of the customer's account or by an entity that authorizes transactions on behalf of the issuer. In other jurisdictions, however, a merchant may be permitted to request the ZIP code prior to submitting the transaction for authorization.
Mobile merchants may be unaware of the particular regional authentication requirements that apply at a given transaction location. In instances where a mobile merchant is aware of the local requirements, the merchant may be unable to modify the authentication processes performed by their mobile access device. Moreover, even if the merchant's mobile access device is configured to allow for modifications to existing authentication processes, such manual adjustments can be time-consuming and may involve an inefficient use of an access device's processing resources and battery life.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems.